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Monday, June 6, 2016

CBET nr. 4282, issued on 2016, June 05, announces the discovery of an apparently asteroidal object (magnitude ~18.5) found on CCD images taken on May 31 with the 3.5-m f/1 Space Surveillance Telescope on Atom Peak in the White Sands Missile Range, NM, USA, in the course of the LINEAR survey. This object has been found to cometary appearance by CCD astrometrists elsewhere after it was posted on the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage. The new comet has been designated C/2016 K1 (LINEAR).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp. Stacking of 10 unfiltered exposures, 120 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2016, June 04.4 from H06 (iTelescope network - New Mexico) through a 0.43-m f/6.8 astrograph + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer, shows that this object is a comet with a compact coma nearly 8 arcsec in diameter elongated toward PA 225.

Comets & Asteroids news

Welcome to our Astronomy blog, devoted in particular to Comets & Asteroids and related topics. This blog is maintained by Italian amateur astronomer Ernesto Guido, particularly active in the study of the small bodies of the Solar System.